


Mirror Blue Night

by blak_cat



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-31 10:51:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3975346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blak_cat/pseuds/blak_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alone in a hayloft can lead to many things, kissing away the past was Laura's favorite scenario.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror Blue Night

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the Tweets about the barn and a prompt I've had in my head for a while.

The _Sound of Music_ lied to you. There was absolutely zero amounts of whimsical fun when it came to trekking across Austria, even with LaFontaine and Perry singing 90% of the way. And snow wasn't a nice, cozy December comfort when it was coming down sideways and felt more like needles than soft touches. And it was dark out, which only made it all the scarier.

And then there was the thing about your body shaking, like, uncontrollably so. And you weren't really sure how to make it stop.

"Where are we?"

Your words come out in a jumbled mess of stutters, punctuated by shakes and you cross your arms over your chest trying to hold it still. You're Canadian, winter is nothing to you, you a strong, and resilient and--really freaking cold.

"Not sure," LaFontaine says, mimicking your gestures and huddling next to Perry.

You look at Carmilla, the only one apparently unaffected. She looks irritated, but what else is new. She's shiver free and you envy her that, at least for the moment. Right now she's looking straight ahead but you know she's been sneaking glances at you for the past mile and managed to pull you away from a few snow banks that were way deeper than you anticipated. Funny as she may have found your first submersion in a deep snow drift, she didn't seem eager to repeat the process.

You chance taking a step closer to her. The past few days have been, slightly awkward, and you're trying your best to get over "so we both like each other" hurtle and speed right ahead to the part where you get to call her yours because you're not letting her out of your sight again without that much. Carmilla seems good and happy to take as much time as possible with moving forward. You think it might be some kind of 17th century chivalry thing but you're really not in the mood for it.

She notices your casual shuffle towards her, probably because she's on you like a hawk, and gets the hint. She doesn't back away or roll her eyes at you. What she does do is step in front of you, stopping you mid stride as your knee bumps her leg, and crouches.

"Uh…"

"Get on."

Oh. So you've gone from a a foot of buffer space to let me climb on your back and wrap my legs around you. Not sexually frustrating at all. Not that you only saw her for her objective beauty, but you also would be blind to miss it. Smokin' hot seemed look a good use of words.

"If you exhaust yourself too much your body won't be able to fight the cold," she says, huffing. Her knees were sinking below the surface of the snow.

You obey, silently, and mold your front to her back. She takes control of your legs from you and pulled you as flush as possible, gripping tight to the underside of your thighs and lifting from the ground. You linked your hands over her chest with a fist to a wrist and let your chin rest on her shoulder.

It did make your heart race, you had to admit, because your maybe girlfriend offered to carry you on her back and it was like something out of a gross and poorly written Nicholas Sparks book. 

"All that excitement will warm you right up, cutie."

Goddammit. You need to really work on your biofeedback skills because perception of every facet of your vitals was going to get you red in the face often, you predicted.

"Hey lovebirds, keep up," LaFontaine calls back. "I think there's something up ahead."

"What kind of something?" Carmilla asks.

"The shelter kind."

"Last time you said that you almost became gingerbread."

"Well maybe this time don't go snacking on anyone and we won't have to run into the first place we see."

Carmilla is about to open her mouth to say something, probably super offensive, back to them but you release one of your hands and place the palm to her far cheek and she stops immediately. Now who was excited?

"Shhh," you whisper and kiss her cheek.

And she obeys.

\----

The shelter they found was an abandoned barn. At least you hope it's as abandoned as it looks. It's mostly stone, which you think is way better for keeping warm than wood, and LaFontaine uses some left over hay to try and insulate obvious cracks and holes to the outside. Perry is trying to find a suitable place for everyone to sleep and clearing away old nails and debris. You've been deemed fit to return to the ground and you're scouting the place for food or water and Tweeting an update to whoever is still watching your feed.

Carmilla is, shocker, doing nothing.

"Are your spidey senses getting anything? Werewolves? Zombies? Evil fairies?" LaFontaine asks, turning to Carmilla. 

"Nothing," she says. "Just a lot of mold and dust."

"That, we can work with," they say, finishing off the last gaping hole in the foundation. They walk over to the center of the room with a fistful of hay. "As for the rest of this, say hello to quick warmth. Care to do the honors Ms. Pyro?"

Carmilla shrugs and walks over to help but Perry pops up from where she was rummaging behind one of the stalls.

"No fire!" she says. "We don't have a controlled area and this whole place could go up."

"I think we can handle it," Carmilla says.

"Need I remind you immolation is in fact one of the ways to kill a vampire?"

"At least I'll be warm."

You wish you could laugh with LaFontaine but you're still kind of sensitive when it comes to jokes about Carmilla dying. Especially when she limps here or there or you catch sight of residual bruises that you're not sure will ever heal. You see them plain as day sometimes, when she does actually rest. And all you can think is _those are for me._

When she was gone you were angry and told yourself that dying for you was not the same as loving you. But seeing it up close, painting constellations between wounds and hearing the hisses and groans, watching the anatomy of sacrifice play out before your eyes, you understood. And as badly as you wanted to kiss away the pain and apologize over and over, she wouldn't let you. And you knew it was her choice, but even if she got in the cage on her own, you felt guilty for holding the key.

"Okay then, well there is always the old fashioned way of warming up in these situations…"

They wink in your direction and you're confused for three seconds before you turned red as a tomato, even in the cold, you're sure. Carmilla, apparently bored with the conversation, had taken to doing her own form of recon around the barn because suddenly she was climbing up a ladder and out of sight.

You walk over towards her direction while Perry and LaFontaine continued to debate the pros and cons of an indoor open flame. There's rustling from above and she pokes her head out and tilts it a bit, motioning you up to join her.

You did your best to maneuver your frozen limbs enough to get them working up the ladder, only slipping once and you surface into a hayloft. Carmilla was using her foot to clear out space in the center and move the patches of hay into one corner, making a cushion.

"Home sweet home," she sighs, examining her handy work.

You walk up behind her and slip your arms around her middle because you think you two can do that now. And even if she stiffens, she softens just as fast and let her hands settle over yours on her stomach.

"It's home enough for now," you say. "Besides, you're here."

"You're gross."

_No, I think I'm in love-_

Nope, way too early to scare yourself with those types of thoughts. But it had some truth in it, you're sure. And you didn't realize it when you lost her, it was only in the bright, white joy at seeing her returned to you.

At the very least, you want her for your own. No one else can have her because it will break you in two. Your feminist side says being possessive of her is wrong but the side that sees her face while you fall asleep doesn't care and something tells you she doesn't mind either, if it's you. And that makes your insides flutter.

"The right thing to do would be to ask if LaFontaine and Perry want to join us," you groan.

"When have I ever done the right thing?" she asks, turning around and suddenly her arms are around your waist too.

"You've done quite a few things right recently," you say.

"And right now will not be one of them," she smiles and presses her forehead against yours.

You giggled into her neck as she pulls you closer and somehow these chaste moments of hugs and snuggles sometimes feel better than her lips on yours and her tongue in your mouth. She's so much warmer than one might imagine and you want to fall asleep just like this. She senses that, apparently, because she pulls back.

"You're not a horse, you sleep laying down," she says and you roll your eyes.

Her fingers weave between yours and she's pulling you by the hand to the cushion of hay in the corner where the chattering from below has calmed down to hushed voices as LaFontaine and Perry seemed to be perfectly content with their comforts below (and probably talking about the two of you).

Carmilla lays down first and allows your hands to break apart as you're still standing over her and you realize she's letting you make the decision. You've cuddled up next to her before while on the road, but there is still residual doubt in her face that it's a practice you wish to continue and you stomp that self-conscious bug right out by laying your head on her chest and wrapping an arm around her middle, your leg stretching out over hers.

This time she does not stiffen, but melts completely, her arm coming around to circle your shoulder and play with your hair. The other arm rests on top of the one you used to hold her close and nothing felt like it fit together more than in this moment, hidden away in a hayloft, wrapped up in her.

"I might be able to help that shivering problem more as the panther," she whispers.

"I like you better," you say. "Not that the panther isn't cool, but you're perfect right where you are."

She smiles, heading falling back and arms pulling a little bit tighter. She's exhausted, you know this, and you know she's miserably aware too. But something about nighttime and vampires makes it a trial to go to sleep. She explained it once like someone trying to nap in a brightly lit, sunny room in the middle of the day. It was possible, but close to out of reach.

But you also don't want to leave her alone in the night.

"Tell me a story," you say, sitting up a bit.

"Why?" she asks, eyebrow raised.

"Because I want to hear one."

Contrary to the typical, stories do not help you fall asleep. It's too much stimuli and you're up for hours with a churning mind. She doesn't know that though, so perhaps she'll oblige if she thinks you'll fall asleep.

In the meantime you trace your fingers over the exposed skin on the top of her wrist. There is an indent of flesh on her forearm, a thin line right down the skin, evidence of skin cut open and woven back together.

"What's this?" you ask before you can tell yourself that was definitely an inappropriate question.

Inappropriate but certainly relevant question and Carmilla seems unfazed, turning to look down at the location in question. Okay, maybe now she was fazed, because she frowned. And it wasn't the _I don't understand this episode of your show, cupcake_ kind of frown. It was the _I've lived too long_ frown. And you hate that one.

"Nevermind, I didn't mean to—" 

"It's okay," Carmilla says. 

It didn't feel okay but Carmilla pulled up a bit on the sleeve to get a better look at the scar. 

"It was a silver knife," she says. 

So, silver could hurt vampires after all. You could never be sure about what was real and what wasn't. Stakes were deadly, garlic was just irritating, holy water and crosses earned hisses from her. You did get confused, about how things invented or discovered long after vampires entered the world could do harm to them but Carmilla brushed it off as curses from local shamans and the like. 

You carefully run the pads of her fingers across the tiny trench, all the way up until it tapers off into unharmed, soft skin. 

"How did it…" you keep your eyes on the old wound. 

"My mother." 

Oh no. Not that. Anything but that. Your eyes shoot up to hers on instinct and they're blank, emotionless, tightly controlled. She twiddled a piece of straw between her fingers and watched it intently as it spun. 

"There was a period of…torture, before I was locked away," she says. 

You hate her mother, you hate her, you hate her, you hate her. You feel like the rock you threw down upon her wasn't enough, the fall to the bottom wasn't enough, twenty stakes through the heart could never be enough. But Carmilla spent centuries loving her, adoring her, worshiping her because she was the only family she had. And you think maybe she still does, even now. Sometimes she's up late at night and you hear her speaking some language you don't understand but catch the word _Maman_ and even a few mentions of her brother's name. 

"Where else?" you ask because you have a ridiculous idea and you don't really care if Carmilla is up for it or not because you called her your girlfriend on Twitter and you'll be damned if you don't back that up. 

"Laura you should sleep," she says. 

"Carmilla, just once, then I'll never ever ask again," you say. 

She sighs and sits up. She hooks her fingers under the hem of the sweater and lifts, crossing her arms on the way up and off slides Grumpy Cat to reveal your own grumpy cat underneath, now back in one of her many black shirts. 

The next part affords some hesitation as she slowly brings her hands to the bottom of the this shirt, purposely giving you plenty of opportunities to tell her to stop. But you don't, because maybe you two haven't done _that_ yet but you know you're going to soon and what a mood killer it would be to blurt out _where'd you get this scar?_ in the middle of foreplay. 

The shirt slides off in much the same way, revealing inches of pale white skin underneath, contrasted sharply against a pitch black bra that you are more than happy to have stay on because suddenly your palms are clammy but you're going through with this. 

Silently, she points to a small welt on her side, sitting over the grooves of her ribs. 

"A silver bullet," she says. "Maman let it sit in there for 3 days." 

You tell yourself you're not going to lose nerve because she did so much for you and this is pennies in return but it's the beginning of the rest of your life you think so you start it with good memories. 

You place a soft kiss to the spot and try not to smile when she gasps in surprise. You pull away and look at her as evenly as possible. She's watching you too, maybe waiting for you to run or say something but you wait, patient. 

"Um," she says and you did that, _you_ made her speechless. 

She, hesitantly, points to another on her shoulder, deeper looking than the one on her wrist, and longer. That one receives your lips as well. There is one more in her abdomen that receives an open mouthed kiss and she stifles a laugh at the contact (so she was ticklish after all) and you lift your head up smiling, inches from her own. 

"All better," you say softly. 

"It is now." 

It isn't better, because those scars will never go away and they came from someone she loved and who maybe, in some twisted way, thought they loved her. They would be with her a hundred years from now, two hundred, three hundred and beyond until she forgot your face and the sound of your voice so you make sure to leave imprints of yourself where they sit so when she thought of them, she'd think of you. 

You're kissing now. She leans back and into the bundle of hay and you follow her down like smoke. You let your knees hold you up, tucked on either side of her hips, so your fingers can rub at the scars on her abdomen like smoothing them over. She's humming into your mouth and you think that's the human version of her purr and try not to giggle because for some reasons she gets really self-conscious about doing cat things in human form. 

Her own hands are resting softly against your sides, tucked under the sweater and the shirt underneath and you relish the feeling of her callouses as she massages the skin and muscle there. You're humming too, now and blizzard outside is all but forgotten. 

What isn't forgotten is that there are two other people with you in this barn and they're making their presence known fast as they call your name and shake the ladder. 

You break off from her fast and roll to a more chaste position at her side while she fumbles to get her shirt on, covered in bits of hay, just in time for LaFontaine to pop their head up into view. 

"So, Perry has vetoed any fires," they say, finishing the climb and sitting on the hayloft's edge, Perry's bundle of hair appears next, carefully pulling herself up beside them. 

"And that concerns me because?" Carmilla says and you elbow her. 

"I'm clocking it as still only 1 degree Celsius in here so it's in our best interest to share body heat," they said quite plainly like it was the answer on some bio quiz. 

"Oh, is it in our best interest?" 

You elbow her again and whisper _be nice_ into her neck. She pouts and folds her arms across her chest and suddenly she's not even 18 or 334 but a kindergartener and you try not to make fun of her in front of Perry and LaFontaine as they shuffle over to share the makeshift bed. 

"Hope we weren't interrupting anything," LaFontaine says, mostly in jest but with wiggled eyebrows. 

"Actually—" 

Another elbow and she's pouting again but you hook your fingers into her belt loops and yank her closer, filling in the few inches gap between your hips. She's still got her arms crossed but she's relaxing a bit now and you use your head to nudge her arms apart so you can repeat the position you had earlier. 

LaFontaine passes around some stolen chocolate and you nestle your head into her chest, right above a faint, fair, and slow beating heart. Your arm holds tight across her stomach and your legs tangle and you sigh when her arm comes back around you and you're touching completely. 

You think of that girl, alone and sad in your dorm room and pity her for all the things she almost never had. And you think of who you are now, weeks later, and how wonderful it feels to know you can do this every day for the rest of however long Carmilla will have you. 

Carmilla's going through her phone, probably to keep herself entertained, while you slowly start to doze. Perry and LaFontaine are already snoring on Carmilla's other side. 

"You called me your girlfriend," she says, brow furrowing at the Twitter feed on her screen. 

"Duh," you say into her shirt. 

You think you can actually hear her smile when she sighs and she kisses your hairline with so much softness you forget she just ripped out the intestines of a witch not 36 hours ago. 

"Stole my thunder babe," she whispers and you fall asleep smiling. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading friends and let me know what you thought!


End file.
